Author: balroop singh
A former high school teacher and an educator, a passionate reader, a published poet and a writer, an ardent nature lover, I am also fond of good, soft music. Amazon link for my books: goo.gl/X1NEFf
Are You A Puppet Or Like Pulling The Strings?
Are we just puppets, dancing to the tunes of our masters who keep changing?
Are we tuned to twirl and change according to the wishes and expectations of people around us?
The most powerful weapon is love, which influences us instantaneously. Equally potent is emotional blackmail.
Just watch children who can be easily trained with affection and endearing emotions.
As we step out into a wider sphere, we come across many people who can easily pull the strings and enjoy doing so!
Which side of the fence do you sit?
A marionette is usually a laid back person, does not have strong opinions about anything and lacks the determination to resist any control.
Who tunes such people?
Circumstances, people, society, family members, someone at our work place…could be our Puppeteer.
Since childhood we are conditioned to follow certain values and beliefs, which mold our personality. The environment in which we grow, the kind of people we interact with nurtures our thoughts and emotions.
Living with manipulative people who try to control even our emotions may affect us in a negative manner.
They make us believe that the whole world is like that; nothing works right without pulling the strings. They try to prove that they are always right.
I have worked with such persons. They are so efficient at creating their own puppets that many willingly walk into their den!
Flexible and weak-minded persons let it happen before they figure out how much they manage to change us.
Understanding manipulators
Once we realize that we are being pulled into the world of our manipulators, we can unfetter ourselves before they take control of our thoughts and opinions.
It is quite difficult to fathom the depth of their snares; these ‘brainwashers’ possess the clout to clutch us, without any real force.
They can overpower our minds just by talking or lurking behind the screen, influencing us through our own weaknesses.
I have been trying to understand the emotion attached to this kind of mindset – is it manipulation or inherent trait of establishing supremacy or both?
Why do we let our strings be pulled?
- Fear of rejection?
- Anxiety to please?
- Inability to react?
- Naivety in understanding?
- Need of being loved?
- To avoid conflict?
- Eagerness to succeed?
Is there an emotional reasoning to tolerate them?
Don’t we encourage them by complying with their unfair demands, which keep going up, as we get accustomed to getting pulled?
Slowly we may accept the behavior of such people who try to condition us.
How to resist manipulations?
Have you ever tried to wriggle out of their effective tactics?
Make an effort; that is the first step.
Be firm. We can convey our unwillingness to follow them blindly without being impolite. Develop the habit of taking your own decisions.
Love can never be an excuse to give into the demands of such people. Real love does not demand anything.
Don’t get carried away by their appreciation, which might be another strategy to use you or get more work out of you.
Refuse to give into their intimidation; fear is the major cause of becoming a puppet.
Be patient; study the demeanor and demands of such people and then decide. Impetuosity doesn’t help much.
Respect your self-esteem and your rights. Think freely and nurture the resilience to push all the pressures away.
Work on your weaknesses. Don’t talk about them openly as they can be exploited against you.
I have raised my questions in this post and would eagerly wait for your opinion.
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Balroop Singh.
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Why I Married At 23…Sometimes We Do Make Wrong Decisions!
Our decisions cling to us, we have to live with some of them all our life. We might live in the shadow of regret because we didn’t have the maturity to ponder. We didn’t have the guts to speak up, to express our resentment, to rise against what appeared to be a wrong decision.
What if a parent or sibling makes those life-changing decisions?
What if they were made under societal pressures or moral bindings?
What if they are seen to be quite right by everybody around us?
All these questions didn’t crop up when I married at 23 (actually 22+) and it happened to be a happy marriage.
Thankfully, I have lived by that decision without any regrets.
I am not alone!
I know many girls marry at this age, out of choice. But the million-dollar question is: Are they enlightened enough to gather the import of such a decision?
When there is an unwritten decree that you have to marry when you are asked to just because it is convenient for the people around you, when the society values your muteness at such decisions, when you are expected to concur with what your near and dear ones decide for you, when you don’t want to displease them…do you have any choice?
In many cases that decision may turn you into a puppet, a slave, a housemaid, a sex symbol, a money-churning machine – who cares? You are seen as respectfully, happily married woman!
Now many such questions stare at me and I realize how simple, how immature and young I was at that time.
I couldn’t even understand that I was abdicating my dream, my aspiration.
I was told that I could still pursue it. I just chose to forget it but that is another story!
I was told that everybody must settle down. I could hardly fathom the depth of those words.
Did I have a choice? I was not expected to question or even see the man I was supposed to marry though I did raise some queries and insisted on meeting him at least once.
It is another matter that I met a kind and understanding man.
All those who are married off like this are not that lucky.
Those were probably primitive times…we didn’t have any Google to ask all those questions. We just had a radio and a gramophone, which sang away to glory and who was interested in the news that women had been granted equal status, that they too could claim their rights!?
Nothing has changed in this technology driven, digital world.
The unwritten diktats of the society follow young, naïve girls to their grave.
Younger brides can be easily molded, that is the belief. They can’t wield much power and will-power, this weakness can be easily exploited.
I didn’t have the power or the authority; they too face the same scenario.
The patriarchal societies are driven by the same age-old traditions of marrying a young girl, demanding (or expecting) dowry and considering the wife as a personal property.
My own niece met with the same fate and I couldn’t do anything! Isn’t it strange? But she chose to divorce!
She could only do so when the choice lay in her own hands and I appreciate her bold step.
I am not shifting any blame.
I could have also made a wrong decision. Many people do so.
I am only trying to understand how much has our society evolved. How much freedom have we attained and who have actually got that freedom?
At the same time, I am awe struck at the wrong decisions made in the western world, where dating at teenage endows them with too much of freedom.
They have all the choices!
We all make wrong decisions but when we make them ourselves, we move on, thinking it was a bad dream, a little mistake, and an aberration.
How long will the societal oppressions keep demanding the sacrifices of young, innocent girls? How long would their ambitions be thwarted by the biased demands of their culture and dogmas?
Thank you for reading this. I am sure you have some thoughts to share. Please do so.
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Balroop Singh.
Image adapted from: http://kenmclane.org
Dead End?
Attracted by the rosy path
Littered with little primroses
On both the sides…
I took this journey.
It seemed so fascinating
To tread the unknown trail
How could I forget the elation…
The warm words of assurance!
Words…empty words?
Leading me into unknown ventures
Little help, just soft silence…
Pretense of leading, guiding.
This seems to be the dead end
Alone in the wilderness…
Staring at the desolate way
Congregating courage to trudge.
I sit gagged, staring into space
Towards the wilderness
The horizon so close
The rainbow so alluring
Forgetting that rainbow is transitory
And the horizon – a delusion
I still move on!
Who can question my mettle?
Who can doubt my optimism?
Who can distrust my capabilities?
Of making new pathways
Dead end is nothing but an illusion.
©Balroop Singh
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You can click on Sublime Shadows Of Life to read more such poems.
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Fears And Unknown Anxieties… Do They Keep Returning?
Do fears hibernate like reptiles? Are they similar to anxieties?
To my mind, most fears are external, caused by people and circumstances. Anxieties are internal – they could be unshared thoughts that scare us or cause uneasiness.
I eliminated my fears long back, having convinced myself that nothing scares me. I could face all kinds of people – the angry mother, the bullying brother, the intimidating boss, clever and selfish friends, the insecure colleagues, the indignant parents and some unruly students staring at me, with dagger eyes!
Interviews have never given me any nervous feeling albeit I have failed many.
I always had the courage to say whatever I wanted to… I have been called outspoken and rude for my temerity to stand up to injustice.
I always tried to close my eyes to those shadows of the past that followed me, warning them that they were powerless.
I have emerged out of them, knowing well that I could vanquish them with the bold spirit that I seem to have inherited.
That sinking of the heart when the airplane shudders in the air, that same feeling when the earthquake strikes is the only conscious and uncontrollable fear that lurks around me and I tell myself… ‘Well, I am not afraid of death. I am ready for it!’
As a child, whenever I closed my eyes to sleep, a small web like circle would always go round and round, multiplying itself into many. I could never interpret them or share that fear with anybody. Too scared to see it in reality, I would close my eyes tighter and they would keep on spinning, creating a contraction in my heart and a lump in my throat.
I could deal with those unknown fears alone. I have never shared this visual with anyone, thinking nobody would believe me. I knew I would be scoffed at.
I refused to struggle with the external fears and told myself that they are just a creation of my mind.
I have always lived like ‘I have nothing to fear’, as Fran Sorin’s guest, Tess Marshall, creator of The Bold Life suggests.
Intimidation could never affect me. My positive thoughts were stronger than bullying or accepting defeat.
I know I have emerged with invincible resilience.
Even after all these experiences with fear, after having defeated all of them, some fears are quite strange and inexplicable as they return in my dreams, even now.
May be in my eagerness to fight all kinds of fears, they got entrenched in my subconscious mind, revealing themselves only in dreams and that too in a vague, weird manner!
Whenever I have a feeling of insecurity or distress, I sleep badly. The nightmares are not very intense but I often wake up, having lost, unable to cross a water body or being surrounded by a sudden surge of water. If I try to take a different route to return home, water bars my way.
This recurrent dream has been quite consistent and whenever it returns, a grim reminder hits me – you can dismiss fears, bury them, forget them but you can’t completely wipe them out of your system as they slide into the inner recesses of our mind and get activated in the most unexpected manner.
I share my fears only with my inner voice.
I have been learning to calm them down with the most logical approach that fear is an innate emotion; all fears are a product of this emotion.
Can we eliminate an inborn emotion? Then why do we delude ourselves with the belief that we can obliterate ‘fear’ out of our minds?
I have written about this delusion.
You can click to read more: Swamped By Fears? The Real Monsters…
Thank you for reading this. I am sure you have some thoughts about fear. Please share them.
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Balroop Singh.
Image credit: http://m.diary.ru
Emotional Shadows 